Perspective

Let us put some numbers into perspective, the illegal immigrant population of the United States exceeds the population of each one of these countries:

Cuba, Greece, Chad, Portugal, Belgium, Czech Republic, Tunisia, Hungary, Dominican Republic,Rwanda, Belarus, Haiti, Bolivia, Guinea, Sweden, Benin, Somalia, Burundi, Azerbaijan, Austria, Serbia, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Israel, Honduras, El Salvador, Tajikistan, Togo, Papua New Guinea, Libya, Paraguay, Jordan, Sierra Leone, Laos, Nicaragua, Denmark, Slovakia, Kyrgyzstan, Finland, Turkmenistan, Eritrea, Norway, Singapore, Croatia, Costa Rica, Georgia, United Arab Emirates, Central African Republic, Ireland, New Zealand, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Lithuania, Panama, Uruguay, Albania, Mauritania, Armenia, Kuwait, Jamaica, Mongolia, Oman, Latvia, Kosovo, Namibia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Lesotho, Botswana, Gambia, Guinnea-Bissau, Estonia, Trinidad and Tobago, Gabon, Mauritius, East Timor, Swaziland

There are a further 80 countries on this list which is comprised of sovereign states and self-governing dependencies.

If you add both the legal and illegal immigrant residents of the United States, you can add the following countries to the list:

Ghana, Taiwan, Yemen, Romania, Mozambique, Australia, Syria, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Angola, Chile, Netherlands, Kazakhstan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Niger, Malawi, Guatemala, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, Senegal, Mali, Zambia

The complete list of sovereign states and self-governing dependencies contains 222 countries. Of those countries 167 have lower populations than the number of legal and illegal immigrants in the US.

Considering just illegal immigrants, 149 countries each have a lower population.

Consider that fact... we could absorb the entire population of any of those countries and the number would be less than the number of illegals we currently have.

Put another way, the annexation of Cuba would have less of an impact than our current illegal immigrant population.

Some of you may have a problem with the term illegal immigrant, may I point out that the definition of illegal is 'forbidden by law or statute' and/or 'contrary to or forbidden official rules, regulations, etc.' The term is not used to describe their motives or behavior outside of their immigration status... they are in this country contrary to law or statute, hence they are illegal.



I first published a variation of this article during the last immigration bill debate back in 2008, the numbers have changed a bit over the years, but the impact on our society hasn't changed much.

Just a small dose of perspective